This production of Turandot was first staged in Seville
and then in Trieste, Cagliari, Santander and Cordoba before it
reached Helsinki in January 2004. When it was revived last Saturday
it was a fitting tribute to Swedish-Canadian director Sonja Frisell
that conductor Muhai Tang dragged her in front of the audience
for a personal curtain call. Of the many Turandots I
have seen, live or on TV, this is the tautest, most gripping and
most many-sided version. The combination of Frisell’s direction
and Ponnelle’s sets and costumes is the backbone of the
performance – having worked together for many years, not
least at La Scala, they have functioned as a radar pair, which
is very obvious in Helsinki. I really can’t imagine a better
realization of Puccini’s last and possibly greatest masterpiece.
It was here performed in the “standard version” with
Alfano’s completion of the last act. It is by now part and
parcel of the opera and although it has been criticized ever since
it was first heard – “Puccini with water” –
it fairly well handles Puccini’s posthumous sketches. I
can’t say that Berio’s version, which I saw and heard
in a decidedly ridiculous production in Berlin a year and a half
ago, comes any closer to the mark, quite the contrary.

In the first act the stage is dominated by a giant head centre-stage,
crowned by a pagoda-like tiara with stairs – or rather grand
stands – on both sides. In the second act we see what is
actually the reverse side of this head, which is now the Emperor’s
palace in Peking. In the third act we are back to the first act
setting but when the icy princess has finally thawed and fallen
in love with Calaf the stage rotates once more to the Emperor’s
palace where the Emperor gives his blessing to the no longer unknown
prince Calaf. Turandot is indeed grand opera, to rank
in the same category as Aïda, and Sonja Frisell
treats it likewise. The crowd scenes are impressively handled,
showing that the people can easily be manipulated but also showing
the power of the people. The chorus is in this opera a protagonist
in the same way as the commenting chorus in a Greek drama, and
also a dramatic force. This evening the FNO Chorus had a field
day with a mighty homogenous sound – some wobbly male voices
apart – and tremendous power. There were many interesting
features belonging in the grand opera tradition with processions,
ballet, architectonical groupings and the choreography and virtuosity
of the executioner’s handling of his sword was almost worth
the price of the ticket alone.

The comical elements – at least partly; they are also scaring
henchmen to Turandot – Ping, Pang and Pong were acted and
sung with great authority and fine feeling for both the light
and the dark sides of their characters by Sauli Tiilikainen, Aki
Alamikkotervo and Ari Grönthal, who were backed up by three
orange coloured miming artists who created funny doodles in the
margin without being so obtrusive as to divert interest from the
main proceedings.

The FNO Orchestra was on top of their considerable form and Muhai
Tang, who has sometimes been criticized for slackness, led his
forces with unstinting precision, from the first heavy, ominous
chords and all through the opera. Maybe there was after all a
slackening towards the end but that may be just as much Alfano’s
fault.

To me this opera is not so much a work about individual human
beings but rather about archetypes, which is also mirrored in
Turandot’s riddles. Calaf doesn’t fall in love with
a woman, he loves the image, the idea of a woman. And Turandot’s
attitude towards humans is clearly illustrated by the fact that
she has already had 26 suitors beheaded “off stage”
before the Prince of Persia loses his, triumphantly exhibited
to the audience by the executioner.

‘Il suo nome è Amor’ (‘His name is Love’),
Turandot announces in the final scene, but again it is the abstraction
“Love”. Real, human “love” is shown only
by Liù, the slave girl who is taking care of Timur, Calaf’s
father, because she is in love with Calaf. And this love is so
strong and unselfish that she sacrifices her own life to save
his. She is also the character that Puccini was obviously in love
with. Some commentators say that he was really in love with the
soprano voice, as witnessed by the large number of wonderful soprano
arias to be found in all of his operas, but I still think that
in writing Liù’s two arias he surpassed himself.
In this performance they were sung with great affection, beauty
and warmth by Ritva-Liisa Korhonen, and there were certainly more
than the odd furtive tear that rolled down cheeks in the audience
during her singing. She has indeed a fantastic voice, with absolutely
steady high notes and the power worthy of a Turandot. Old Timur,
who must also rank among the humans, was sung by Ilkka Vihavainen
with such beauty of tone and identification that one wished the
part had been much bigger. It is indeed a marvel how Finland continues
to produce one great bass after the other.

But of course it was the leading couple who more or less stole
the show. Turandot may be the smallest main soprano part in all
opera, but the demands on the voice are almost super human. The
Mongolian soprano Baysa Daschnyam flung her big voice fearlessly
up in the stratosphere with such tremendous power that the eardrums
of the people in the first rows of the stalls were clearly at
danger. She had none of that wobble that so often afflicts dramatic
sopranos these days, she showed great sensitivity to nuances (yes,
there are several notes that are not supposed to be sung fortissimo)
and there was also a deal of warmth in voice that quite early
showed her heart not to be made of ice alone. Marvellous singing!

Mika Pohjonen’s Calaf was a worthy partner, his slightly
baritonal voice being an ideal instrument for the unknown prince.
There is something of Mario Del Monaco in his timbre but without
the older tenor’s tendency to bawl. ‘Nessun dorma’
at the beginning of Act III (the one tenor aria that everyone
knows nowadays) was impressive and brought down an enthusiastic
round of applause, drowning the orchestra.

This production, which every visitor to Helsinki should see, shows
several things: it is still possible to stage an opera in the
original times and settings and give it some universal applicability
so that it speaks to present day listeners; there are fantastic
singers around, not least in Helsinki (I would love to hear this
cast in a recording) and it definitely shows the generally high
standards, in all departments, of the Finnish National Opera.
Bravi!